Hello everyone! My name is Kylen and I am the new AAI UN Youth Representative! I was very excited to attend my first UN briefing at the UN Headquarters this past Thursday. The topic of this briefing was on Women and Slavery:

The briefing focused on African American women who had advocated for the abolition of slavery and how they essentially began the women’s rights movement. Susan B. Anthony stated “There will never be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.” Elizabeth Maurer spoke about how only “15% of the content in American History textbooks involve women, and that every time a girl opens a book and reads a womenless history, she learns she is worth LESS.” The briefing also discussed modern day slavery and how there are more slaves today than there ever have been before. Francoise Verges stated “There is always a part of bonded labor in everything we buy today.” When African Americans were being bought and sold into slavery in the Americas, there was an unbalance between men and women. There were more slaves that were men, which led to a large number of sexual assaults among female slaves. For example, there was a plantation with 800 slaves; there were only 80 females.

This briefing was enlightening and I am happy to have been able to attend. Please stay tuned for more blog posts in the near future!